Voice of patients is heard at Birmingham CrossCity CCG event

on 28 June 2013.

More than 80 patients from across Birmingham learned how they can be involved in helping health commissioners shape services for the future at an interactive event yesterday.

Birmingham CrossCity Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) held the event, entitled CrossCity Voice, to listen to patients about their experiences of the NHS and seek feedback on plans for future services.

The CCG is led by doctors and nurses and buys healthcare services for about 730,000 people across Birmingham, with around six in ten of this population living in some of the most deprived areas in the country.

The event included a 'Speaker’s Corner’ – a series of short talks to generate conversations on the following topics:

How Birmingham CrossCity CCG commissions healthcare services:

The role of GP practices within the CCG;

Mental health services;

Listening to patients;

Urgent care

Building public involvement into commissioning

Dr Gavin Ralston, Chair of Birmingham CrossCity CCG and a Birmingham GP, said: “One of the greatest challenges facing the health service today is the need to redesign services to meet the needs of patients and improve the quality of care across the whole of the city’s health services.

“We want to commission the best health care at the best value to deliver the best outcomes. Our aim is to improve healthcare across our young and diverse city by making the NHS and social care work in a much more seamless and joined-up way. We need to identify and roll out good and innovative ways of doing things.

“To do this successfully, we want to ensure that our patients and the wider public have a 'voice’; to give them the opportunity to tell us what they think of our local health services and how they would like to see these improve.

“Yesterday’s event showed the mutual commitment of the public and our CCG as a clinically led organisation to work in partnership with patients, carers and residents across the city to shape the future of our health services.

“We were very pleased that so many people joined us to share their ideas. Ideas and feedback from the event will be published on our website and we will be looking at how we can take suggestions forward in the years to come.”

CrossCity Voice was held on Thursday 27 June at Austin Court, Cambridge Street, Birmingham.